


Five Tips Professionals Don't Want You To Know About Your Hair!

by gala_apples



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fingerfucking, Genderfluid Character, M/M, Polyamory, Shaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:47:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25530829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: Max’s gender dysphoria and euphoria tend to express through Max’s hair. Luckily xe’s developed techniques for whatever gender xe wakes up as that day.Or,Max is gender fluid and loves xir boyfriends, Lucas is easily distracted from video games and Dustin likes to lounge around in the mornings.
Relationships: Dustin Henderson/Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Five Tips Professionals Don't Want You To Know About Your Hair!

**Author's Note:**

> There are a million ways to be genderqueer, probably more. I modeled Max somewhat after my personal experience, but if it's an experience that doesn't work for you, there's always the back button.
> 
> Written for the shaving prompt for seasonofkink.

Max spends most of xir time gender neutral, xe thinks. Well, besides when xe’s around El. She so often needs girl time to get away from Mike’s shit that Max finds xirself slipping on her femme veil to provide that support even if xe’s not feeling particularly femme. El tells xir xe doesn’t have to, and Max knows that she gets it. El knows how hard it can be to perform someone you’re not because others expect it of you. Knows better than Max, probably, because it’s not a life or death secret government agent thing for xir, just feelings. Max appreciates the thought, but the femininity doesn’t start chomping in when El’s around. Maybe it has to do with the constant low grade competition xe has going on with Mike over who’s a better support for El. Mike will upend his life for her, but Max will rearrange xir soul when El needs it. Max wins.

Beyond El though, xe’s almost always neutral. It’s xir standard of life, sometimes for entire weeks at a time. It’s easier now than it was in high school. Back then Max had to spend entirely too much time with Neil and Mom, being their _daughter_. No number of explanations would stop either of them from misgendering xir, and maybe it’s unfair that xe’ll do it for El but not for them, but Max has never felt quite as relieved as the day xe moved out.

Thankfully, the explanations went a bit better with xir friends. Despite not fully understanding xir gender woes, they all accepted it. A perfectly fine attitude really, Max has never felt slighted for the mild confusion. Being upset about that would shine a light of hypocrisy on xir, considering it’s not like xe can fully understand Lucas’ blackness in a pasty white town, or El’s abilities, or Will’s asexuality. Everyone in the Party has their own shade of unique problems, besides maybe Mike. PTSD does not make you a special snowflake, buddy.

Lucky xir, Lucas and Dustin like xir when xe’s neutral. Max could understand if xir boyfriends liked xir better femme so they each had one boyfriend and one girlfriend. Alternatively, preference for masc would make sense. If Dustin and Lucas were gay with a side of pan, having two boyfriends would be clear cut. Straightforward. But absolutes have been far and few between in xir life. Xe can’t even write off xir racist homophobic abusive brother as better off dead, after the last minute sacrifice. So rather than absolutes, Max lives xir life in neutral and only on occasion wakes up gendered and is loved for it.

Max wakes up and feels different than normal. There’s not enough words for it, she thinks. There’s no way to describe how and why. Half her friends are masters of the human language, whether it’s Will’s indie comic book storytelling, Mike’s weekend DnD DMing, or Nancy’s newspaper editorials. Not to mention the semi frequent lying to the government. It’d be nice if some of it had rubbed off on Max, and she had the words to explain why today she wants barrettes in her hair while last week when someone called xir mam at the grocery store it made xir want to claw xir skin into ribbons. But she’s got nothing, just the facts.

“It’s a femme day,” Max informs Dustin. She knows without rolling over that he’s awake. There’s a reason he sleeps in the middle third of the bed, and that reason is he is oddly determined to always be the last up. It doesn’t matter if he’s been awake and daydreaming for three hours, Dustin stays snuggled in the sheets until the last of them is getting up. Which to be honest is usually her. Lucas has a freak morning person gene. On weekdays he can be nearly peppy about going to work. It’s obscene.

“She her?” Dustin asks.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“I’ll let everyone know.”

Max sits on the edge of the bed, and true to character Dustin sits up to semi spoon behind her. “Getting dressed now?”

Max considers it, eyeing their myriad of dressers. Their bedroom isn’t particularly small, but three people have a lot of stuff. Two of the four walls of their bedroom are cluttered with purposely mismatched dressers, both to hold their shit and as faux countertops to display their cool collectibles. Amongst the bunch are several femme drawers. There’s a single masc one too. Gender neutral clothes tend to skew masculine in the dull eyes of society, so nothing much has to change between xir faded jeans and his faded jeans. He might be more inclined to borrow a hoodie from Dustin or Lucas, but mostly it’s just the same clothing. He only needs one drawer for shirts that make him feel particularly masc, plus a few packers and bottles of cologne. There’s a binder in there too, but Max rarely uses it. Max has other dysphoria triggers, but having boobs never much bothers xir.

“No, don’t think so. Think I’m gonna go have a shower.”

Max wants barrettes in her hair today, and maybe even a skirt. Or nice jeans. Fitted, ass hugging, embellished on the pockets jeans. There are a handful of good options in her dresser. Whatever she chooses the first step is obvious. She leaves Dustin and heads for the bathroom.

It’s crazy how often xir dysphoria centres on xir hair. Last month Max spent three very masc days wanting to scream every time his hair touched his neck. Dustin had tried to help with baseball caps and ponytail elastics, ever the problem solving boyfriend. In the end it was sheer willpower that stopped him from shaving his head, knowing how frustrated his femme and neutral selves would be about the impulsive decision and ruination of years of work. The best solutions for things like this are temporary ones, so the person she is tomorrow doesn’t get fucked over by today.

A perfect such example is shaving. Shaving her legs is a deeply performative feminine action, and feminists all over the world would kill her for enjoying doing so whenever she feels femme. Max gets it, she does. She goes unshaved for a month at a time, sometimes. Body hair is normal, and one specific gender offshoot shouldn’t have to remove it while no one else does. That fact doesn’t change the equal fact that sometimes it feels _good_ to have silky smooth legs. And yet it grows back quickly enough that by the time she’s xe, xe’ll have stubble. As far as temporary dysphoria solutions go, it’s just about the best she’s got.

Max tosses her red t-shirt in the hamper in the bathroom -the perfect gender neutral article to wake up in on any given day, starting the day dysphoric sucks- and leans in to fiddle with the taps. It takes a minute before Max lands on the right temperature. It doesn’t deeply matter, she’ll be in long enough that any temperature of water will cool and she’ll need to add more heat, but it’s nice to start off right. She adds the plug and as the water level begins to rise in the shallow tub, Max pours her raspberry blackberry bubble bath under the tap. The torrenting water agitates the liquid and bubbles begin to froth. Bubble baths aren’t just a femme thing. She’s happy to have them no matter who she feels like. Hell, even Dustin and Lucas take them on occasion. Anyone who thinks deliciously scented bathwater is gendered is stupid. They are however a solid aid to what Lucas jokes is her femme final form. Baths are the easiest way to stay comfortable while shaving.

There’s no finer feeling than descending into a tub of hot water. By the time the bubbles displace around her she’s submerged up to her collarbones. Max spends the first five minutes just enjoying the enveloping heat and the scent wafting up to her face. Then she raises an arm up out of the bubbles to grab her raspberry shower gel first, and one of the loofahs second. She pulls her leg out of the scented water and props it on the wide rim of the bathtub. The porcelain is icy cold against her heated skin. The shock of it sends a lightning bolt up her spine.

When the bite of cold air has gone on long enough to start raising goosebumps, Max squeezes the soapy loofah until it gets warm and foamy, then wipes it down her leg. It’s a soft contrast to the hard of the tub rim pressing against her calf, the kind of soft she always wants when she’s femme. Max stretches forward and puts the razor at her ankle, just above her anklebone. She swipes a path up to her knee, leaving a trail of no soap. The suds start to shift down her leg with gravity so Max swipes the loofah again. It becomes a pattern as she works her way across her left leg; swipe, shave, admire, swipe again. 

Slowly Max removes all the hair from her lower legs, enjoying every minute of it. She could stand up in the tub and run the loofah over her thighs, but she doesn’t. Some women do, she knows she’s seen tips about doing it without nicks in Cosmo. For her though, stopping at the knee works. The hairs on her thighs are fair and fine, an almost transparent golden tone. Everyone knows the more you shave the darker hair comes in. If she starts she can't stop, and while that statement is oddly applicable to most of her life, Max doesn’t want it for this.

When she’s finally perfectly smooth, Max pulls both her legs back into the berry scented water. Her legs glide as well as dolphin fins in the warm water, and she can’t help the way she drags them against each other.

It’s that sensation that has Max pulling the plug from the drain earlier than she usually would. Dustin will still be eating his breakfast, but her other boyfriend should be free. Max opens the bathroom door and calls out “Lucas, come feel my legs.”

“I’m playing something, can you come here?” he shouts back through the apartment.

Well if he’s going to be that way, fine. Max strides out of the bathroom in just her fleecey floral robe. It’s her standard. There’s a plain navy terry cloth one if the association with flowers begins to bother her, but it’s almost always fine, and this one is softer and warmer. Max strides into the living room and sits in the middle cushion. She drapes her beautifully shorn legs over Lucas’ lap. Lucas rubs his hand down her right leg. 

“Very nice,” he comments before picking his controller back up.

“Oh, that’s it?”

“What more is there to say?” he asks practically. “Nice legs, Max, really, but I’ve only got fifteen minutes to find the cave before the portal switches locations and all my riddle answers become useless.”

Max is a gamer too, she gets it. She’s also certain Lucas has a recent save point and will reload if he can’t get it in time. Max semi-spitefully lifts her legs to impede his view of the tv and begins sliding them together. They feel so silky smooth.

“Max, come on.”

“If you won’t entertain me I have to entertain myself,” Max sing-songs.

“You are the most impossible person sometimes.” Lucas puts his controller down, the character jogging in place on the screen. “You win.”

Lucas pulls her legs back down into his lap, and this time appreciates them for the gift they are, a palm gliding up the smooth expanse of her calf. He unties her robe and encourages it to fall off her shoulders, and it’s only when Max is bare that Lucas goes for a nipple with his left hand.

Dustin comes into the room smiling. Like Lucas he’s fully dressed. Unlike Lucas, whose filthily occupied, he’s got a innocent half finished glass of cranberry juice in hand. But you don’t get to the living together stage of a polyamorous relationship if you react negatively to walking in on two lovers getting it on. “Oh I see my two favourite people are doing my second favourite thing.” First being science, Max has no doubt. She loves her nerdy ass boyfriend. “Can I get in on this?”

“Hop in wherever,” Max confirms.

Dustin plunks the glass down unceremoniously, then strips himself of his denim blue hoodie before he sits on the until now ignored leftmost cushion. Max feels a warm hand on her knee as Dustin stretches forward to reach around her side, and the next thing she knows Dustin’s pulling her left leg onto his lap. With Lucas still holding the right she’s stretched like a gymnast, only gymnasts don’t tend to do their routine naked. She’s exposed to the world and despite that actually being just Lucas and Dustin it feels like more. 

Dustin starts with a leg massage. The touch of his palm makes Max’s newly shaved skin tingle. Dustin runs hot, the human equivalent of bathwater versus porcelain, and his wide palms feel good and heavy on her creamy skin.

Lucas, on the other hand, starts the most featherlight touches Max can imagine. He’s got only two fingertips on her, his index and middle, but it doesn’t matter. As hairless as she is now, there’s nothing for the scant skin to snag on. Her legs get every milimetre of Lucas’ delicate touches, and it’s enough of a tease to have her biting her lip.

Part of her might blame Lucas’ switch in methodology on the lighthearted but endless competition Lucas and Dustin have, their mutual commitment to do every single thing their way and have the better technique win out, both certain that that’s _their_ way. Well, Max may have sided with Dustin about air drying dishes, and Lucas about if M&Ms should go in microwave popcorn, but not today. There’s no way to decide between Dustin’s warm squeezing and Lucas’s velvety drawing. She just needs both on her.

Things get even better when her boyfriends decide to use both their hands. Their outer hands keep on appreciating the sleek lines of her legs, but Dustin’s right and Lucas’ left decide to meet in the middle. Again they use utterly different techniques. Dustin slips two digits inside her cunt, a wise choice as the mutually declared King of Fingering in the Sinclair-Henderson-Hargrove household. Lucas, meanwhile, goes for her clit. Together it’s an unstoppable onslaught, one Max is happy to be trampled by. She throws her head back to grind into the top of the couch as she comes, delighted that they know her well enough to not stop touching her until she’s done panting. 

“Hey, Madmax? I know you just had a bath, but can I come on you?”

Max appreciates Dustin’s manners. They’ve been dating three years now, he knows she-he-xe’s cool with it, it’s an all gender thumbs up. And yet he always, always asks.

“Go for it, both of you. Just on my legs though.” 

Both cede to her enlightened wisdom, or at least to the orders in which she’ll allow them orgasm. But Max is creating the best situation she can, with her directive. When they’re both through, it might be fun to drag her come dampened shorn calves together, see if the difference in texture can get her going a second time. It’s entirely possible. Max _really_ likes when her hair expression matches her gender.


End file.
